Data Access Using Remote Data Objects (RDO)

Remote Data Objects (RDO) is specifically designed to access remote ODBC relational data sources, and makes it easier to use ODBC without complex application code. RDO is a primary means of accessing SQL Server, Oracle, or any relational database that is exposed with an ODBC driver.

The general characteristics of RDO are:

Simplicity (when compared to the ODBC API).
High performance against remote ODBC data sources.
Programmatic control of cursors.
Complex cursors, including batch.
Ability to return multiple result sets from a single query.
Synchronous, asynchronous, or event-driven query execution.
Reusable, property-changeable objects.
Ability to expose underlying ODBC handles (for those ODBC functions that are not handled by RDO).
Excellent error trapping.

Compared to the older Data Access Objects (DAO) technology, RDO is a smaller, faster, more sophisticated alternative. RDO is especially capable of building and executing queries against stored procedures and handling all types of result sets, including those generated by multiple result set procedures, those returning output arguments and return status, and those requiring complex input parameters.

The following sections will acquaint you with RDO data access technology.

Section	Description
Understanding the RDO Object Model	Defines the RDO object model and how it works.
Accessing Data with RDO	Discusses the application and use of the RDO data access technology.
When to Use RDO	Specifies when to use RDO in your application.

For More Information For more information on how to implement data access using Remote Data Objects (RDO), search for "Understanding Remote Data Access Options" in MSDN Library Visual Studio 6.0.